Sharp County record., 1887-06-30
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Necessity of Faith and Prayer
Foroibly Illustrated.

The Story of Stephen, the Martyr, and the
Pictures of Sublime Faith and
Trustful Prayer Presented
in His Death.
For the subject of recent sermon aI
the Brooklyn Tabernacle Rev. l. Dew ieI
TaImape took that of the Necessity
of Faith and Prayer" illustrating IL
by the story of the martyr Stephen his
text was:
Behold, see the heavens open, and tne Duh
of Man standingon the right hand OF Goa.
Then they cried out with LOUD VOICE, @uu
stopped their ears, and ran upon MIN Will on0
accord.
And cast him out of the city and stoned him;
and the witnesses laid down their clothes a'
vounp mans feet, whose name was Saul
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon Goo-
and saving. Lord Jesus receive my spirit
And he kneeled down and cried with a louu
voice Lord. Law not this sin to their cnarge'
And when he had said this, he fell asleep
lActs, vii, $780,
Stephen had been preaching roaslng
sermon, and the people could not stanu H.
They resolved to do as men someIlnes
would like to do to this day, If they dareu'
with some plain preacher OF righteous
ness-kill him. The only way to silence
this man was to knock the breath out OF
him. So they rushed Stephen out OF tne
gates of the city, and with curse,
and whoop and below they brought
him to the cliff, as was the
custom when they wanted to take away
life bv stoning. Having brought him to
the edge of the cliff they pushed him OH
| After he had fallen they came and looked
down, and seeing that he was not dead,
they began to drop stones upon him, stone
| after stone, stone after stone. Amid this
horrible rain of missiles stephen cam
bers up on his knees and folds his nahus'
| while the blood drips from his temples 10
| his cheeks, from his cheeks to MS gar
| ments, from his garments to the grouhu'
and then, looking up, he makes two pray
ers-one for himself and one for his mur'
| derers:
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
That was for himself.
Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.
That was for his assailants. Then, from
main and loss of blood, he swooned away
and fell asleep
want to show you to dav five pictures
Stephen gazing into Heaven; Steph en-
looking at Christ; stephen stoned !;
Stephen in his dying prayer; Stephe n
asleep.
First, look at Stephen gazing into
aeaven. Before you take leap, you
want to know where you are going to
land. Before you climb a ladder, you
want to know to what point the ladder
reaches. And it was right that Stephen,
within a few moments of Heaven, snoula
be gazing into it. We would all do well
to be found in the same posture. A man
of large wealth may have statuary in the
hall and paintings in the sitting-room, and
works of art in all parts of the house, but
he has chief pictures in the art gallery,
and there, hour after hour, you walk with
catalogue and glass and ever increasing
admiration. Well, Heaven is the gallery
where God has gathered the CHIEF treas
ures of his realm. The whole universe is
his palace. In this lower room where
1--we we stop there are many adorn-
y ments-tessellated floor Of amethyst and
So iossonn, and on the winding cloud-stalrs
are stretched out canvas on Whlcn COM
mingle azure, and purple, and saff ron,
and gold. But Heaven is the gallery in
which the chief glories are gathered
There are the brightest robes. There are
the richest crowns There are the high
est exhilarations. John says OF it:
The kings Of the earth shall bring their honor
and glory into it.
And see the procession forming, and
! in the line come all empires, and the stars
sprinp I'D into an arch for the hosts to
march under. They keep step to the
sound of earthquake and the pitch OF
avalanche from the mountains, and the
flag they bear is the fame Of consuming
world and all Heaven turns out with
harps and trumpets and myrlad-volced
acclamation of angelic dominion to well
come them in, and so the kings OF the
earth bring their honor and glory into IT,
Do you wonder that good people often
stand like Stephen, looking into Heaven
We have a great many friends there
There is not man in this house to-day 80
isolated in life but there is some one IN
heaven with whom he once shook hands
As man gets older, the number OF MS
celestial acquantances very rapidly
multipies We have not had one glimpse
of them since the night we kissed them
goodbye and they went away, but still
we stand gazing into Heaven. AS when
some Of our friends go across the sea, we
stand on the deck, or on the steam-tug,
and watch them, and after awhile the
hull of the vessel disappears, and then
there is only patch OF sail on the SKY,
and soon that is gone, and they are all out
of sight, and yet we stand looking In the
same direction; so when our friends go
awav from US into the future world
we keep looking down through
the narrows, and gazing and gazing as
though we expected they would come
out and stand on some evening cloud, and
give us one glimpse of their blissful and
transfgured faces.
While you long to join their companion
ship and the years and the days go with
such tedlum that they break your heart,
and the viper of pain and sorrow and
bereavement keeps gnawing at your
vltals, you still stand, like Stephen, gaz-
ing into Heaven. You wonder if they
have changed since you saw them last
You wonder ifthey would recognize your
face now, so changed has it been with
trouble. You wonder if, amid the
myriad delights they have, they care as
much for you as they used to when they
gave you helping hand, and put their
shoulder under your burdens. You won
der if they look any older; and some
times, in the evening-tide, when the
house is all quiet, you wonder if you
should CAL them by their first name il